There are a wide variety of different types of agricultural machines. One type of agricultural machine is a combine harvester. A combine harvester can be used to harvest a variety of different types of crops, depending on, among other things, the type of header that is mounted on the harvester.
Some combine harvesters are fitted with a corn header for harvesting corn or a header for harvesting sunflowers, or a similar header. The present description will proceed with respect to the header being a corn header, but it could be another header as well.
The corn header has, at its front end, a plurality of row dividers that separate the corn rows from one another and act to guide cornstalks back to a gathering chain that assists in moving the cornstalk to a mechanism (such as a snapping roller) that separates ears of corn from the cornstalk, itself. The ears of corn are then moved to a feeder house where they are moved rearward toward the grain processing subsystem in the harvester.
It can happen that, after the ears are separated from the stalk, but before they enter the feeder house, they bounce forward and land on the ground in front of the header. The harvester then passes over the ear. This results in the grain on the ear being lost because the harvester never processes it.
Therefore, some corn headers are fitted with ear loss inhibitors (or sometimes referred to as “ear savers”) that are mounted to the row dividers at the forward end of the gathering chain, in the direction of travel of the combine harvester. The ear loss inhibitors are often formed as flaps that allow the cornstalk to move between them as the harvester engages the stalk, but inhibit any ears of corn, that have been separated from the cornstalk, from falling forward and then under the header.
Other corn headers have been fitted with probes or fingers that are mounted on the snout (i.e., the leading edge) of the row dividers, or closely proximate the snout of the row dividers. Such probes can be arranged as fingers or wires or other sensors that sense crop characteristics.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.